I have an elite 9135 system with answerphone plus an extra handset. One of the handsets is OK but the other has a fault that has the audio break up (both dial tone and talk). It sort of comes and goes in fits and starts.

I have replaced the bty to no effect but I find the problem will go away for two or three weeks if I unplug the bty for several hours (like overnight).

Any ideas what would cause the problem and why unplugging the bty temporarily solves it?

A couple of years ago we bought one of those model phones - with built in answering machine and a second handset - and it was utterly hopeless. We had repeated cases of audio drop out in the middle of calls, as you've described, where we could hear the caller, but they couldn't hear us, and a terrible echo during calls too. It all started less than a month after we bought it.

After a lot of back-and-forth with the retailer we got it off (who had to go through the process of sending it off to Uniden for testing each time - of course it came back reported as 'no problem'!), the manager of the store ended up taking it home for himself to try. Within a couple of days he confirmed that he too had experienced the problem, and immediately offered us a refund.

We'd bought the Uniden as an upgrade to a basic, but old, Panasonic phone, but after the problems and the subsequent refund immediately went straight back to a Panasonic alternative, and have never had a single issue since. Personally, I wouldn't go near Uniden again after that experience.

There's a number of people who've experienced similar things with this particular model phone, so something clearly went very wrong for Uniden - check the following for info:

I'd guess there is an assembly fault, like an intermittent solder connection or missing supply decoupling capacitor, resulting in random corruption of the micro-controller or audio circuit. Analogue components that are not correctly implemented (or a missing component) can latch-up which recovers only with removing the battery and letting the supply capacitors completely discharge.

Lots of product quality comes down to manufacturing quality, not necessarily design quality. Panasonic phones look ugly, but they are reliable. There are a few other good brands like Doro and Oricom.

Thanks for the replies. After reading the many reviews on the productreview site, you have to come to the conclusion that there is a strange variability issue with these. A (very) few thought they were great but most hated them. At least I don't get the bad echo problem many report!

Even, in my case, I have one handset that is OK but the other has a fault. My fault with the audio sounds different from yours, smarsden, as I don't lose audio completely. It just breaks up so small portions of audio are lost.

Like you say, Niel, capacitor discharge seems the only explanation for the temporary solution. But it still seems starnge that the 'fix' lasts for a couple of weeks or so.

Anyway, I wouldn't buy Uniden again. Or I would do more research and only buy ones that had all good reviews!

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